The Science & Poetry of Light – growing brighter

Click on the blue writing above to download a visually rich 32 page (3MB) presentation of poems and science concepts about light, which takes about 12 minutes to read.  It is the culmination of a three month project, between Science Rhymes author Celia Berrell & Whitfield State School students (9-11yrs), to share the science of light which inspired them the most.  We hope you enjoy it!

It’s 2015 and we’re celebrating the International Year of Light!

Since June, students from Whitfield State School have been helping to create an entertaining & educational resource of poems about LIGHT to share during National Science Week. Our first performance was on Saturday morning 15^th August at Handmade Cans, 1/47 Shields Street, Cairns.

Handmade Cans: The Science & Poetry of Light presentation

Celia, Tayler, Ava & Tehya

Ava, Tayler and Tehya recited all the poems in our presentation The Science & Poetry of Light to a friendly audience at Bones & Jones Café / Handmade Cans craft shop at 10am & 11am on Saturday.

If anyone was nervous, it didn’t show because we all had too much fun sharing poems & science about rainbows, twinkling stars, blue skies and more.

Congratulations to the children in the audience who had a go at reciting poems too!

Thank you Tania & Steve at Handmade Cans for providing such a colourful & cosy venue, and to all the parents who supported this project.

James Cook University’s Launch for National Science Week

An impressive line-up of JCU scientists shared their latest research through talks and exhibits at the Tanks Art Centre, Edge Hill, starting at 3pm on Saturday 15^th August. Because I had registered the Science & Poetry of Light presentation at Handmade Cans on the National Science Week website, JCU’s event organiser Lisa Jones made contact and kindly invited me to be part of the JCU celebrations.

I agreed to help children write and recite poems about science at a small craft table, one of the many side-shows for the event. But when I received the programme schedule on Friday, I discovered they’d also allocated a 5 minute segment at the beginning of the event for me to deliver a Science Rhyme recital!

The MC for the afternoon’s presentations was Professor Andrew Krockenberger. On discovering I was reciting a science poem to open the event, he was inspired to share a science poem too, about the microscopic creature called a Tardigrade.  I was unable to find the poem on the internet, but Prof Krockenberger kindly supplied it:

Waterbear Down by the blogger “Miss Prism”
I serenade the Tardigrade
He’s nature’s superhero.
He can’t be killed by being chilled
To near absolute zero.
He’s happy to be dried or fried
With X-rays or with heat;
He will my dears, survive for years
Without a bite to eat.
He lives in soil, and springs that boil
And every hostile place
He’d even thrive in – well, survive –
The vacuum of space.
You need a blade or hand-grenade
To slay the hardy tardigrade.

I then shared the Science Rhyme Aurora Borealis (find it on the Science Rhymes homepage or in the book Celia Berrell’s Science Rhymes). Earth’s Auroras are great examples of natural “light shows” of excited electrons in our atmosphere. So I dressed in fairy-lights and explained that the honour of being on stage made me “… so excited, if I was an electron, I’d be jumping up and down emitting photons of light”.

What a fantastic start to National Science Week here in Cairns!

Thanks to all the Trinity Anglican School year 5 students and teachers at White Rock and Kewarra Beach, I have been seeking out interesting website links to help them write poems about the Solar System. Here are 12 topics from the list students gave me yesterday.

1.  CERES: A SPOTTY ASTEROID

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news-detail.html?id=4633

http://dawnblog.jpl.nasa.gov/

At almost 1,000km diameter (across), Ceres is the largest body in the Asteroid Belt (in between Mars and Jupiter). We recently gave it the title “Dwarf Planet” because of its size. We thought asteroids were hard rocky bodies, but Ceres contains lots of water (as ice).

Bright white spots on Ceres have scientists excited. What’s that spot? Is it ice, salt or some other highly reflective material?

Could some of these white spots be where there’s a kind of hole in Ceres, blowing out gasses into space – like a soft simpering volcano? Maybe Ceres is farting! The space probe Dawn has taken a photo that shows a kind of haze over the biggest group of white spots.

http://www.nature.com/news/mystery-haze-appears-above-ceres-bright-spots-1.18032

Many craters have pointed peaks at their centre, as though the impacted surface of Ceres melted and “bounced back” after it was hit by something, such as another small asteroid (shooting star).

Some surface areas on Ceres are smooth, as though they have had mud or slushy snow flowing over them.

So Ceres is more than a pock-marked block of rock. It is a special asteroid with interesting mysteries we hope to solve.

2.  COMET 67P: DUCKS & DRAGONS

It took 10 years for the Rosetta solar-powered spacecraft (and its probe Philae) to meet up with the Comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (This 10 minute video is about how that was achieved – not much comet info.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b7u6stKgfs

I got the information below from this 30 minute lecture video – very detailed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BuotFLgXVY

• Comet 67P has a surface as black as a tarmac road. Apparently our Moon has too! But they both reflect the Sunlight, which makes them look white when not in the shade.
• Comet 67P is 4km long and shaped like a duck. Its north & south pole axis is on the duck shape’s narrow neck. So it spins, with the two large knobs circling like a fairground ride.
• It rotates every 12 hrs and is colder than anywhere on Earth (-68°C).
• It is half the density of ice, more like cork – so a lot of its material must be like fluffy snow.
• Comets are dirty snowballs (with tails of gas and icy particles streaming away from the Sun).
• It is spurting out jets of dust and gas, mostly on its bright side. But sometimes a jet on its dark side appears (which scientist think is weird).
• The particles shooting into space come in two varieties; dense particles, like grains of sand, and fluffy ones, like a dandelion seed or fluffy snowflakes.
• It looks like it has a crack in its neck. So is it going to break into two pieces?
• There are areas that look like sand dunes (even though there is no wind on a comet). There are rocky looking cliffs (probably ice coated in dust) with landslides of loose boulders and smoother avalanches.
• There are craters with very thin rims and, strangest of all, are some deep pits lined with 1 metre diameter round balls, that scientists have nick-named “dragon eggs”!

3.  ENCELADUS SPITS ON SATURN

There are 101 geysers in those “Tiger Stripes” on Saturn’s second moon Enceladus, spitting out water from a deep underground ocean. So does Enceladus’s Moon-Spit have germs? Could it contain microbes? Some scientists think so …

http://www.astrobio.net/news-brief/enceladus-in-101-geysers/

But others have discovered that Enceladus may contain an “anti-freeze” of ammonia. Ammonia readily mixes with water, making ammonium hydroxide. Dilute ammonium hydroxide is often called “household ammonia” and is used for cleaning! So would Enceladus be too “clean” for germs (and microbes) to grow? Start reading near the colourful image of moon-spit half way down the page where the paragraph begins with the word Ammonia:

http://www.astrobio.net/topic/solar-system/saturn/enceladus/how-enceladus-got-its-stripes/

4.  EUROPA: MISSION TO FIND LIFE

Giant gas planet Jupiter has many moons. But we are most excited about its second moon, Europa, because we think it may have an underground ocean. I wrote the poem Europa’s Secrets from the information we gained with the Cassini space probe mission.

There is a fantastic 3 minute video on this Europa-mission link below. Beautiful images of Europa’s surface as well as what we hope to discover there with this new mission to Europa:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/

And this link has more information about Europa:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4627

NASA’s Galileo mission to Jupiter in the late 1990s produced strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath its frozen crust. If proven to exist, this global ocean could hold more than twice as much water as Earth. With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa may have the ingredients needed to support simple organisms.

The mission plan calls for a spacecraft to be launched to Jupiter in the 2020s, arriving in the distant planet’s orbit after a journey of several years. The spacecraft would orbit the giant planet about every two weeks, providing many opportunities for close flybys of Europa. The mission plan includes 45 flybys, during which the spacecraft would image the moon’s icy surface at high resolution and investigate its composition and the structure of its interior and icy shell.

5.  IO: EXPLODING MINI-MOON

Tiny Io is the closest moon to Saturn. Tortured by its parent planet’s gravity, Io “goes off” every now and again! Lava fountains, lava rivers and lava lakes have been recorded in relation to Io’s volcanic explosions.

http://www.astrobio.net/news-brief/curtains-fire-peering-ios-volcanic-laboratory/

6.  JUPITER’S STORMY EYE

A gargantuan cyclone or tempest rages in Jupiter’s thick gassy layers of hydrogen and helium. And scientists think that updrafts are why it’s raged for years. It’s a bit like ocean currents that can form a maelstrom or whirlpool. Or tornadoes and cyclones in our atmosphere.

There’s concise information about Jupieter’s red spot in the orange box at the bottom of this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2507965/Mystery-Jupiters-Great-Red-Spot-solved-Never-ending-tempest-explained-unusual-motion-planets-gases.html

Get in the mood with some whirlpool videos …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBWqaamZ01I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0acn_2LXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqXAKCFVi_4

Or with National Geographic storm chasers …

http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/nature/storm-chaser-video-reveals-devastating-tornadoes.aspx

7.  MARS: DUST STORMS

A giant crater (Hellas Basin) full of dust is mostly to blame for these incredible storms. The crater’s bottom is warmer than the atmosphere above. This difference in temperature can cause the air on Mars to whip up storms and fling that dust around in just a matter of hours.

http://www.universetoday.com/14892/mars-dust-storms/

As the dust grains rub together in a storm, they can cause static electricity so powerful it could change the chemistry of the molecules in the air, making it snow Hydrogen Peroxide! (which is poisonous to living things).

http://www.universetoday.com/405/electrical-dust-storms-could-make-life-on-mars-impossible/

8.  MERCURY’S SPIDER

Rock varieties on Mercury are highlighted by how they reflect light colours differently. This detailed image clearly shows the location of the Mercury’s “Spider”.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/bill-dunford/20140127-giant-spider-of-mercury.html

Situated inside the giant crater named the Caloris Basin (about 1,500 km across). A smaller impact site (Apollodorus – about 40 km diameter) has lines, like spider legs, radiating from its centre. These furrows named Pantheon Fossae are hundreds of kilometres long. They would have been formed when a meteor struck there, making Mercury’s crust spread out the stress of the impact, similar to the pattern of a cracked glass.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080923084541.htm

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jan_mercurysurprise/

9.  SUN’S LOOPY FLARES

Video of solar flares

https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/170907-solar-flares-vin-spd.

A general info video on the Sun (beware the measurements are in miles not kilometres, degrees farenheit not centigrade):

One mystery about the Sun is why its CORONA (upper atmosphere) is heaps hotter than the Sun’s surface. Broiling on the surface is a plasma of hydrogen & helium gas behaving in a “loopy” way. Scientists now think that the action of magnetic fields and nanoflares make the corona hotter than the surface.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18020-suns-rain-could-explain-why-corona-heat-is-insane/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528785-200-cold-solar-loops-may-help-solve-corona-puzzle/

10.  TITAN’S METHANE RAIN

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is larger than planet Mercury and shrouded in a thick orange-green soupy atmosphere of methane, ten times thicker than Earth’s blue air atmosphere.

I love this 4 minute video from the Huygens probe as it parachuted down to the surface of Titan, then looked up at the Sun before resting its gaze on the pebbly landscape nearby. One raindrop of methane (condensation) falls. Remember this is a speeded up video as it took over 30 minutes to fall through Titan’s thick methane atmosphere. So the raindrop doesn’t appear to be as slow as it was in “real time”.

http://www.space.com/28265-saturn-moon-titan-landing-anniversary.html

below: NASA facts about Titan (see Alien Weather):

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm?SciencePageID=75

Bathtub rings on Titan – nice colour photos:

http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/bathtub-rings-suggest-titans-dynamic-seas/

11.  URANUS: HARD-HEARTED WITH WEIRD ORBIT

Uranus has two sets of dark rings – probably from a smashed-up moon or moons. And has a weird orbit around the Sun, as though it is “rolling round the Sun”. Here’s a great video of information about our quirky, often misunderstood gas / ice giant which possibly has diamonds in its core!

http://study.com/academy/lesson/uranus-moons-rings-atmosphere-rotation.html

How to pronounce the word Uranus properly!

12.  VENUS: LAVA FLOWS & METAL SNOWS

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/on-venus-it-snows-metal-99154/?no-ist

There’s metal snow on the mountaintops of Venus. It’s far too hot for water ice!

Two types of metal: galena and bismuthinite in their metallic mineral form start to vapourise at Venus’ hot temperatures of 480°C. They float into the atmosphere as a metallic mist. Like water vapour on Earth, this mist condenses at higher cooler altitudes, making it fall back to the ground as shiny silver frosty snow.

Check out “Does it really ‘snow’ Galena on Venus?”

http://geology.com/minerals/galena.shtml

What does Venus use instead of face cream, to keep her face wrinkle free?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27756-lava-lakes-spotted-on-venus-may-be-how-it-stays-so-blemish-free/

Collins Booksellers Smithfield is celebrating National Booksellers Day by inviting local authors to help serve their customers on Saturday 8th August.

As part of the lead-up to National Science week, Science Rhymes author, Celia Berrell will be there from 10am sharing poems about LIGHT.  Other poets will be there too.

Please drop in and join us!

Join the PLUTO FAN CLUB!

Launched in 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past the distant dwarf planet Pluto on 14^th July 2015.

The information New Horizons will send back to Earth over the next year or so should get everyone excited about Pluto & other objects in the Kuiper Belt, and will ultimately add to our understanding of the whole Solar System.

NASA posts videos about the New Horizons venture here. “Seeing Pluto in a New Light” is over an hour of interviews with the main scientists, but it’s where I learnt the information below. There will be a new video about Pluto on Friday 24^th August.  (Most of the other videos are short.)

Pluto is an isolated small planet showing geological activity (possible geysers and volcanoes), because it doesn’t have lots of impact craters (whereas our Moon has plenty of them). Triton, orbiting Neptune, also has few impact craters. Astronomers though that Triton’s geological activity (such as the tidal energy Earth experiences from the Moon) was because the giant gas planet Neptune’s gravity is pulling (tugging) on Triton. But there is no giant gas planet near Pluto. So this week we have learnt that a small solitary dwarf planet, far far away from the heat energy of the Sun is capable of having something like a warm centre with energy that can create volcanoes or geysers (or something similar) to make its surface cover over any crater holes.

This ABC News article has some great photos and a very helpful half-minute video at the bottom:

The bedrock of Pluto’s mountains must be made of water-ice rather than rock. Pluto seems to have a nitrogen-ice coating (frosting). Pluto is losing lots of nitrogen gas from its atmosphere into space. So there must be a way nitrogen is being released from the planet’s insides, possibly from geysers and or volcanoes. Is Pluto farting nitrogen?

American, Clyde William Tombaugh, discovered Pluto, so the scientists want to name the heart shaped region after him (Tombaugh Regio).

Sometimes it is the silly things like this issue with Disney’s cartoon character Pluto, that help us remember names. It may also be why some of us love to hear about the planet Pluto!

A POETIC ANGLE: Are we in love with Pluto?

Pluto has a smooth heart-shaped icy-bright area on its surface. Pluto has also amazed scientists by having some kind of geological activity going on inside it. This means it ought to have something warm inside … like a heart!

Can you write a poem about science for National Science Week? Tahya from Whitfield State School has started the countdown with her poem RAINBOWS (below).  Students in Cairns are helping Science Rhymes poet Celia Berrell create a collection of verse for this year’s National Science Week (themed Making Waves: The Science of Light).  And this is an invitation for you to have a go too!

RAINBOWS  by Tehya

Rows of ripe colour spread through the sky
The look so extraordinarily high
Sometimes vibrant and crystal clear
But often faded and not so near.

When rain clouds clear, the sun shines bright
Then raindrops are dazzled by the light
Which first refracts, then reflects on each drop
As a spectrum of colour bursts with a pop.

Some think that rainbows hold magic and mystery
Myths about gold were believed throughout history
Races on rainbows?  Now that can’t be right
It’s simply the wonderful science of light.

There are nine weeks left for you to pen your poetic piece as we count down to blast-off!

Lasers are a relatively new light technology that has a fantastic reach of applications.  From surgery to entertainment, it helps us cut, weld and have sensational fun.

1. We can trust NASA to provide a clear explanation to the question What is a laser?
2. The BBC UK provide a written explanation for year 10 students in their bite-size series.  This may be easier to understand if you check out the NASA explanation first.
3. The first one minute cartoon on this Planet Science page explains why photons are happy to travel together in laser beams.
4. Scienceline gives us some laser history.

Did you know there are competitions to create the most spectacular and complex light shows with lasers?  This You Tube video was posted by Dynamic Lasers.

Most of our planet’s bioluminescent creatures live in the oceans.  And the deeper down we go, the more we are discovering!

1. Firstly, let’s clear up any confusion about muddling bio-luminescence and bio-fluorescence with this helpful webpage from Luminescent Labs.
2. This National Geographic video is about a team preparing to search for a giant squid, but has some illuminating examples of bioluminescence in the sea at night.
3. Marine Biologist Edith Widder starts her TED talk by inviting us on a trip to an alien world; a place defined by light.  And below is one of the images she’s captured – a bioluminescent midwater squid.

One day, we hope to discover life on other planets and moons. Jupiter’s moon Europa may have a hidden sea under its icy crust.  Could it be home to alien bio-luminescent life forms?  Sci-Fi artist Rob Powell imagines the possibilities with his image of a Europan Dragon – Dracolestia xengola!

If you’re looking for some inspiration to help write a poem about the beauty of iridescence, here are some helpful links:

1. You’ll need 10 minutes or so to watch this excellent science lecture for children.  Here’s Beetles Bubbles and Butterflies: The Origins of Iridescence from the Science Bag – University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
2. Or try this page from Yale Scientific which explains what causes iridescence including some vivid photo examples.
3. How Stuff Works has a diagram about getting the right light wavelengths to create iridescent colours requires two surfaces that reflect light waves in a constructive interference pattern.
4. Live Science suggests that some insect iridescence helps confuse the animals trying to eat those insects.  Many birds, such as the peacock (image featured) boasts how fit they are by having iridescent feathers to help them lure a mate.
5. The shapes and surface patterns of butterfly wing scales are what create their iridescent colours.  The Daily Mail UK shared these detailed photos, one of which is displayed next:

Finally, Live Science reveals that even some feathered dinosaurs had iridescent colouring too!